Barbara Bush's letter home

[Andrew Prutsok]

With Barbara Bush being in the news for going into hospice care, just curious what seasoned researchers here make of her "letter home" to family while on a few days campaign swing when JFK was assassinated. According to Russ Baker's "Family of Secrets," the future First Lady was in a salon getting her hair done while composing a letter home to family. JFK was alive when she started the letter and his death confirmed before it ended. Not that I have any ill will toward Mrs. Bush, but I've just not seen this topic discussed elsewhere, literally at all, and it seems awfully fishy. Here's how Baker describes it:

"Barbara’s curious role as recording secretary to history-in-the-making was interesting enough that one would expect the letter to have surfaced well before 1994. Yet, until it appeared in Barbara’s memoirs, it was not even known to exist. Meanwhile, the original letter itself has not turned up. Thus, many questions remain – questions that I hoped to pose to Poppy and Barbara, who declined to be interviewed for this book.

"The excerpted letter warrants careful scrutiny, especially because of all the perplexing particulars. The note begins with a dull thud – a bland mention of a lunch with a “Doris Ulmer.” No Ulmer appears in any of the Bushes’ other books, which list hundreds of family friends, well-known and completely obscure. Therefore, presumably only very close Bush relatives, such as her children, would know who Doris Ulmer was or would even conceivably wish to learn of Barbara lunching with her. No one else would understand that George had even been in Greece on the occasion Barbara mentions when the Ulmers were said to be so nice to him – nor would anyone else know in what way they were so nice to him.

"And yet, the style and comments in the assassination portion of the letter – “we are hoping that it is not some far right nut but a ‘commie’ nut” – are odd things to write to children.

"It’s not clear from Barbara’s memoirs who the recipients of the letter were. She says “Dearest Family” and that it was “a letter home.” But those of her children who were at home were all ten years old or younger. The eldest, George W., was away at prep school in New England. Also, it would seem odd to write “a letter home” if you were only gone from home for several days of an in-state campaign swing – you would likely be back home before the letter arrived. And she signed it “Bar,” not the typical identifier in a letter to young children."

Baker goes on to note that Barbara had strained relations with the rest of her family and didn't even attend her mother's 1949 funeral, so it would be odd that she would write such a letter to them.

What to make of this?

 

Here's a link to Baker's site where the book is excerpted:

https://whowhatwhy.org/2013/10/09/bush-and-the-jfk-hit-part-4-barbaras-hair-raising-day/

 

[Jason Ward]

I don't think the letter suggests much of anything, but IMO it implies she isn't part of a conspiracy or it's coverup.  She could have easily not mentioned this previously unknown letter at all.  Furthermore, Barbara Bush could have left out the crude but accurate intense hope of The Right that the murder get blamed on a commie nut versus a right wing nut.   There's no conspiratorial reason for her to admit the unflattering reaction of The Right at 2PM on 22NOV1963 - which was no concern for Kennedy's wife or kids nor even national security, but instead for gaining political points at the expense of The Left by quickly tagging a commie assassin.

 

Jason

Edited April 16, 2018 by Jason Ward

[B. A. Copeland]

I never quite understood what Baker was implying or stating with his Bush/JFK chapter (perhaps I need to read it a few times). The biggest issue for me is in determining what the famous "Hoover memo" means, deciphering it, etc. Why was Bush named in the memo in connection with the anti-Castro community? If Bush lied about his being in the memo, why? Another George Bush was found, he said it wasn't him and couldn't have been him due to his position in the Agency (paraphrasing). I'm cautious but that memo may need more studying for me personally.

[Andrew Prutsok]

And there's the part about him calling the FBI on his mentally challenged GOP employee.  Nothing suspicious about any of their activities.

[Andrew Prutsok]

Well, if it was anything nefarious, she got away with it. R.I.P.

[Lawrence Schnapf]

is this the right time to ask the question? I would think respect for her passing would suggest we wait until she is buried before discussing this stuff?

[Ron Bulman]

When did decorum for Jacqueline Kennedy end?

[Andrew Prutsok]

The dictate that one 'not speak ill of the dead' is (at best) appropriate for private individuals, not influential public figures.

Glenn Greenwald writing on Margaret Thatcher's death noted the following:

"But the key point is this: those who admire the deceased public figure (and their politics) aren't silent at all. They are aggressively exploiting the emotions generated by the person's death to create hagiography. Typifying these highly dubious claims about Thatcher was this (appropriately diplomatic) statement from President Obama: "The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend." Those gushing depictions can be quite consequential, as it was for the week-long tidal wave of unbroken reverence that was heaped on Ronald Reagan upon his death, an episode that to this day shapes how Americans view him and the political ideas he symbolized. Demanding that no criticisms be voiced to counter that hagiography is to enable false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts, distortions that become quickly ossified and then endure by virtue of no opposition and the powerful emotions created by death. When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms."

 

I know not whether Barbara Bush was a great person. She may well have been. I never had any dealings with her. Whether she was or not, it doesn't change the fact that she and her husband behaved suspiciously on Nov. 22, 1963, behavior that has never been fully explained to the public.

 

 

Edited April 18, 2018 by Andrew Prutsok
Couple of typos

[Joe Bauer]

I'll give almost every immediately deceased person a period of silent spiritually minded respect ( and their families ) just out of my belief that the process of passing from this living realm as we perceive it and where it takes them is a journey beyond our concepts of Earthly meaning and personal judgement.

Exceptions abound as we all know; Hitler, Stalin, whoever initiated and organized the killings of JFK, RFK, MLK, mass murderers, etc.

For me, I would think a week might be an appropriate time to wait before I share my personal thoughts on the Bush's which are closely aligned to the takes on them by Russ Baker and Kitty Kelley.

Barbara Bush's grand kids did seem to have a loving relationship with her.

 

 

 

Edited April 18, 2018 by Joe Bauer